Gilded Age and Progressive Era

„Das platinierte Zeitalter: Überlegungen zu Mark Twains The Gilded Age und den Krisen des 21. Jahrhunderts“

by John Andreas Fuchs

in: John Andreas Fuchs et al. (eds.): Brücken bauen – Analysen und Betrachtungen zwischen Ost und West. Festschrift für Leonid Luks zum 65. Geburtstag, Stuttgart: ibidem 2012, pp. 81-93.

‘Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory’: The Cinematic Adaptation of American Poetry

by Michael Devine

Adaptation 5.1 (March 2012): 1-17

This essay reconstructs a forgotten crisis in American letters and film: President Theodore Roosevelt's unpopular... more This essay reconstructs a forgotten crisis in American letters and film: President Theodore Roosevelt's unpopular campaign to make ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic’ the nation's poem in 1908 and the poem's popular film adaptation in 1911. As the cinematic response to poetry's failure as a national art, the Vitagraph film became a collectivist hymnal for the nation's dream of assimilation. Featured prominently in American poet Vachel Lindsay's pioneering work of film theory, The Art of the Moving Picture (1915), the adaptation effectively reasserted the popular roots of the otherwise genteel ‘Battle Hymn’ poem and by doing so helped to modernize poetry's communal function and the nation's literary tradition.

Music as Ritual Redemption at the Boston Peace Jubilees

by M Smith-Dalton

Master's Thesis (unpublished)

Abstract

The Boston "National Peace Jubilee and Great Musical Festival" (June 1869) and the... more Abstract

The Boston "National Peace Jubilee and Great Musical Festival" (June 1869) and the "World's Peace Jubilee and International Musical Festival" (June-July 1872) were prime examples of "monster concerts" dotting the artistic landscape of the U.S. in the nineteenth century. Both were organized by Irish-born bandmaster, musician, and impresario Patrick Sarsfield Gilmore (1829-1892).
The first was promoted as a "celebration of the restoration of peace in the land" in the wake of the American Civil War (1861-1865). The second was promoted as an agency of international peace after the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871).
The Jubilees present as cultural rituals celebrating redemptive triumph for “the Union,” under banners of "national and international peace."
Due to the way music is processed in the brain, how it affects the body, and its importance in the formation of memory, potency of Jubilee ritual behavior was magnified and reinforced. Music played a central role in molding audience reception of the Jubilees' perceived "missions."
Mind-body aspects in historical analysis are largely underutilized tools. Through such case studies, methodology utilizing such tools may become broadly applicable to in-depth historical inquiry.

"Verily The Road Was Built With Chinaman's Bones": An Archaeology of Chinese Line Camps in Montana

by Christopher Merritt

In review for International Journal of Historical Archaeology. Co-Authored with Kelly Dixon and Gary Weisz.

On August 22, 1883, the Northern Pacific Railroad (NPRR) drove the last spike to complete transcontinental mainline at... more On August 22, 1883, the Northern Pacific Railroad (NPRR) drove the last spike to complete transcontinental mainline at Independence Creek, Montana Territory (Figure 1), which lay about 50 miles west of Helena, Montana and about 30 miles west of the Continental Divide. A group of Chinese, advancing from the west, competed with European and Euro-American laborers from the east to finish the last mile of track. Although there are several mainstream historical publications discussing the NPRR’s construction (, it is clear that the Chinese contribution has yet to be investigated.  As noted by Pegler-Gordon (2006), there was an intentional historical omission of the Chinese contributions from the literature in the 1800s, and this may have [unintentionally] influenced recent research on the NPRR. The relative absence of the Overseas Chinese in period illustrations and historical accounts associated with railroads in the American West is ironic given the significance of their role in the construction of the NPRR, as well as other great transcontinental railroads (e.g., the Central Pacific Railroad) in Gilded Age America.

“Almanacs, Street Names, and Symbolic Gestures: Producing the Cuban Nation in Daily Life”

by Shannon Rose Riley

Book review of _A Cultural History of Cuba During the US Occupation, 1898-1902_ by Marial Utset (U of North Carolina Press). _The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era_, forthcoming, 2012.

Strangling philosophy

by Tawadeen Bankole

Cycling and Women's Rights in the Suffrage Press

by Christine Neejer

M.A. Thesis, completed March 2011

Responding to research gaps in both cycling and women's rights history, the purpose of my thesis is to investigate... more Responding to research gaps in both cycling and women's rights history, the purpose of my thesis is to investigate conceptualizations of cycling in the 1890's suffrage press. I analyze six aspects of cycling in suffrage periodicals: advice and tips to women cyclists; dress reform and women's cycling; women's cycling clubs; health, medicine and exercise; travel and touring; and cycling among anti-suffrage women reformers. I argue cycling and women's rights activism should not be framed as separate aspects of women's lives in the 1890's, but joint practices that influenced and informed the other. Suffrage press authors did not view cycling as mere recreation, but located it within the broader context of women's political activism and social reform. To the women cyclists who contributed to the suffrage press, cycling was ultimately a meaningful and practical way they could challenge Victorian gender constructs and implement women's rights ideology in their everyday lives.

Failures of philosophy

by Tawadeen Bankole

Resorts and Reform: Archaeology at the Wiawaka Holiday House, Lake George, New York

by Megan E. Springate

Presented at the Society for Historical Archaeology Conference, Baltimore, Maryland, 2012

The Wiawaka Holiday House on Lake George, New York is among the oldest continuously operating women’s holiday retreats... more The Wiawaka Holiday House on Lake George, New York is among the oldest continuously operating women’s holiday retreats in the United States. The Holiday House was founded on the grounds of a failing resort hotel at the turn of the twentieth century by wealthy women largely from industrial families to provide factory “girls” opportunities for healthful vacations in the countryside. Before the Holiday House was established, the property was the site of two resort hotels; their histories, spanning much of the nineteenth century, reflect the rise and transformations in the Adirondack resort hotel business. Presented in the early stages of doctoral research, this paper describes the current state of history and historical archaeology at the property and explores avenues of research related to the meanings and uses of leisure time in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as well as questions of gender, class, power, and labor.

“Re-Defining Democracy: Jane Addams and the Hull-House Settlement.”

by lara kelland

published in the Journal of American History, 2011.

Exhibit review of new permanent exhibit at the Jane Addams Hull House Museum in Chicago. Exhibit review of new permanent exhibit at the Jane Addams Hull House Museum in Chicago.

The American upper class and the American horse industry from 1865 to 1929

by Perky Beisel

American Civil Religion and the Schools (Conclusion of Public Education, America's Civil Religion)

by Carl L Bankston

Injurious Distances: Mobility, Space, Realism

by Franklin Ridgway

The Life of an Unknown Assassin: Leon Czolgosz and the Death of William McKinley

by Cary Federman

The first water-privatization debate: Colorado water corporations in the gilded age

by David Schorr

Appropriation as Agrarianism: Distributive Justice in the Creation of Property Rights

by David Schorr

Atlantic Crossings: Social Politics in a Progressive Age

by Dr. Nicolas P Maffei

The Growth of the Federal Government in the Early Twentieth Century

by Eric Gallager

My paper for my intro to American History class I took with professor Christopher Klemek and teaching assistant Daniel Berkhout the second semester of my sophomore year.

In this paper I argue that the increase in the size of the Federal Government in the early twentieth century came... more In this paper I argue that the increase in the size of the Federal Government in the early twentieth century came about by a combination of a desire by the American public for reform and a perception that the Federal Government was the best agent for this reform.

Inside the Institution: The Art and Craft of Settlement Work at the Oakland New Century Club, 1895-1923

by Marta Gutman

In People, Power, and Places: Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture VIII, Sally McMurry and Annmarie Adams, ed., 248-79. Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press, 2000.

Golden Personalities

by Julian Chambliss

Alia Alli ’11, Angelica Garcia ’10, David Irvin’ 10, Kerem Rivera ’10. Faculty mentors: Wenxian Zhang, Professor and Head of Archives & Special Collections and Julian Chambliss, Associate Professor of History.

Growing out of a collaboration with Wenxian Zhang and the Olin Library Special Collection and Archive, this project... more Growing out of a collaboration with Wenxian Zhang and the Olin Library Special Collection and Archive, this project was part of the Rollins College Student-Faculty Collaborative Research Program. Hamilton Holt,  the eighth president of  Rollins, coined the term “Golden Personalities”  to describe men and women “whose sole love was teaching, who enjoyed associating with young people, individuals with noble characters. ” Holt dedicated himself to bringing these people to Rollins and as a result, the college and community have benefited from the unique environment created by these efforts. Working with undergraduate students we created an online database bring together archival materials exploring the unique personalities that created the college and town.  Working with student collaborators, we identified the subjects, conducted archival research, and uploaded the content.